Last week saw no notable videogame releases in Japan. The only new release to appear in the top-20 software sales chart was the PlayStation 4 port of Akiba’s Trip, which sold 3,602 copies.

At the very top of the charts was Freedom Wars, which maintained its lead for a second week in a row, followed by Yo-Kai Watch at the #2 position. At #3 was Bandai Namco’s new Taiko Drum Master game, which we’ll likely see sticking around for at least a few weeks, given how successful the series has been in the past.

On the subject of Yo-Kai Watch, a sequel to the 3DS RPG, Yo-Kai Watch 2, will be released in Japan this week, and we’ll opening sales figures for the game in next week’s sales column. Since the release of the first game, Yo-Kai Watch has grown to become one of Japan’s biggest videogame franchises in recent memory, so it should be interesting to see what kind of numbers Yo-Kai Watch 2 debuts at.

Can’t say whether it’s true or not myself, but if you ordered a copy already, I suppose you will know the truth soon.

KingGunblader

It’s kind of mind-boggling to see Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart 7 on the same chart. I know that one is for a console and one is for a handheld, but I love the anti-gravity stuff so much it’ll be a lot harder for me to go back to 7.

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

I actually think MK7 has underperformed, at least compared to the Nintendo DS and Wii games. No one really expected Mario Kart 8 to do big numbers, given that it’s on Wii U, but I feel like 7 could have done better, and I think Nintendo need to ask themselves why it didn’t.

It’s an interesting time for them. Mario isn’t as hot as it used to be in general, but in its place, we’re seeing other franchises perform much better than they used to. Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem… even Pokémon, despite how unpolished X/Y were.

That definitely raises a few questions.

Brii-Nanas

Well, chances are, MK7 will end up being the third best-selling Mario Kart, behind the juggernauts that were the Wii and DS version. Considering the install base is around a third the size of the DS’s install base, I don’t think it’s that bad for MK7. Animal Crossing and MK both so far have sold about half of what their predecessors have, so I don’t really see how it’s performing significantly better than Mario Kart.

The Wii and DS were phenomenons. I can’t imagine those level of software sales being sustainable in the next iterations without the same level of excitement and appeal for the actual consoles.

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

I agree that part of the reason is that the 3DS isn’t as big as the DS/Wii, but I don’t think it’s the only reason. For example; I think Animal Crossing: New Leaf will eventually end up selling more or less the same as Animal Crossing: Wild World on DS, despite the fact that 3DS hardware sales will never be as high.

The 3DS software market is very healthy. It’s probably the best thing the Japanese industry has going for it right now. It gives developers a place to put small and big games, it’s a platform where quality is rewarded and software that’s lacking doesn’t perform nearly as well. 3DS owners in general are spoiled for choice, and that’s a good thing, because it drives developers to make better games.

We’ve seen a lot of “good” games do extremely well on 3DS, both first and third-party, and Mario Kart shouldn’t be an exception. If Animal Crossing can survive the lower hardware userbase, then Mario Kart should be able to as well.

I think what’s lacking in MK7 is the social aspect. It isn’t nearly social enough. The best-selling 3DS games are the ones that encourage not just playing with other people, but interacting with them as well, and I don’t think MK7 does a very good job of this. There’s nothing to talk about, no information to exchange with friends.

Even in the case of a distinctly “hardcore” game like Fire Emblem: Awakening, you can talk to your friends about the marriages in the game and swap notes and stories. In the case of Mario Kart, there’s absolutely nothing to discuss that could help drive word of mouth.

awang0718

Mario Kart 7 sales will likely hit about 3 million copies in Japan and about 15-16 million copies worldwide lifetime. That is about 2/3rds of what Mario kart DS sold. Not bad…but could be better.

That being said, Mario kart DS and Wii were very successful anamolies. Expect future Mario Kart titles to sell 12-16 million copies lifetime (assuming the install base is there), not 25-35 million.

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

I think Mario Kart DS’ big draw was that it was the first time we’d gotten a proper 3D Mario Kart game on a portable, and it had online play to boot. Of course, the fact that DS at the time was huge helped, too. On Wii, I think it was the Wii Wheel and the fact that Wii was drawing in a wider audience.

In the case of MK7, it didn’t do anything new. We’d already gotten online play before. We’d already gotten good graphics before. There was no one standout feature.

awang0718

MK7 introduced hangliders and underwater gameplay, as well as the return of coins from Super Mario Kart. These features aren’t “revolutionary”, but they certainly distinguish MK7 from previous MK games.

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

But that’s exactly my point. The changes aren’t large enough to impress people. Underwater driving barely has any bearing on races, honestly. It just feels slower and floatier. So when you’re playing, yes, it feels a little different, but it doesn’t really affect the overall game.

awang0718

Again, like I mentioned, these changesaren’t revolutionary, but they do sdistinguish MK7 from previous entries.

The main reason why MK7 won’t outsell MK DS is becasue the 3DS install base will never be as high as the DS install base. It won’t outsell the MKWii becasue MKWii’s attach rate with the Wii was unreasonably high and likely not repeatable.

Anewme…Again

I think the main reason peoples aren’t as much into Mario anymore is because Mario is overused nowaday…
And also Nintendo isn’t really trying to innovate with Mario games nowaday.

I don’t really know why Animal Crossing is getting more popular, maybe it have to do with that more and more peoples like to be able to play their game the way they want.
And i think the reason Fire Emblem and Pokemon were more popular is because Nintendo tried to innovate with those series and try something new.

Solomon_Kano

It’s a few generations too late for the “Mario is overused” bit though. If it’s a simple matter of brand oversaturation, then I think we’d have at least seen the signs of that a bit sooner. Not that it’s the sort of thing that lessens over time, but certainly I think we’d have seen that come to roost amid the reign of the thousand DS spin-offs.

Anewme…Again

No, i don’t think so.

During the N64 era peoples didn’t complain much because Nintendo was trying to innovate with their Mario games.

During the gamecube and gameboy advance era, Nintendo came up with quite a few new I.P. for Mario spin-off.

During the WII and DS era, the new control for Mario games, made them seem like different games and there was also a few new I.P. released.

For now the WIIU and 3DS have none of thoses advantage and most new Mario games release are too similar to old Mario games.

I haven’t played all Mario games released, but all Mario games i have played in the last few years didn’t bring anything new and Nintendo have been released Mario game at the same rate if not faster then usual since the 3DS didn’t sell a lot in it’s first 2 years and for now the WIIU isn’t selling a lot either.

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

I do think this is partially true.You’re right in that they haven’t really done anything “new” with Mario in a while. Mario Kart is still Mario Kart. New Super Mario is still New Super Mario. Mario 3D World was basically Mario 3D Land with multiplayer and more items. Mario Party… I can’t even tell the difference between the different versions.

So that’s definitely part of the reason, but I don’t think it’s the only reason.

Ethan_Twain

Oh! Well let me help you then. The hierarchy since the release of the Gamecube is Mario Party 9>6>4>7>5>8.

Eight used motion controls poorly (early Wii game) so it gets the most demerits.

Five had super annoying music, super mean AI that targeted players, and balanced items such that using them was often discouraged. Rotten game.

Seven was built around the Gamecube microphone that was neither a great peripheral nor was it used to particularly great effect.

Four was pretty good, but it was the earliest of the Gamecube releases so the production pipeline for churning these suckers out wasn’t in place yet. So there are only 40 minigames. That’s not enough.

Six has good minigames, a good number of minigames, a good day/night stage design that adds variety without adding complexity, and a lot of the boards have unique mechanics or win conditions.

Nine redesigns the entire game flow (everyone moves together) for the better. The boss battles are a great improvement, the presentation is HUGELY improved, and the minigames use motion in a good way. Franchise high water mark.

Now you can sound cool when Mario Party comes up in conversation at a cool party! No need to thank me, I just like doing good deeds.

KingGunblader

I’m sorry, but the notion that 9 is the best post-N64 Mario Party just SCREAMS bs. Really, it does. The boss battles were kinda fun, and it dials back on the horrible motion games used in 8, but the basic gameplay redesign removed what little bit of strategy the series had, which is a huge detriment, if you ask me.

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

A round of applause for our speaker, Ethan Morris, PhD.

Anewme…Again

Yeah, i don’t think that’s the only reason either, like i said above overuse of the same Mario games probably don’t help either and also peoples taste have changed a lot in the last few years and maybe it’s times for Nintendo to come up with new Mario I.P. that would be more to the taste of the new generation.

Maybe it would be times to make an FPS Mario, there’s no doubt that FPS is extremely popular in the west and it seem like it’s starting to take off even in Japan.

There don’t seem to be anyone who own the FPS crowd in japan yet, so i think it would be wise of Nintendo to try to get it before it get bigger and someone else take it.

That is of course if it do get bigger, but i think there’s a good chance of that happening, you just need to see COD sales and you can see it’s getting bigger in Japan.
Even Battlefield seem to be doing quite well.
Of course they are nowhere near the sales of beast like MH, Pokemon, DQ etc.
But if a japanese developers would release a decent FPS, i think it would change a lot.

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

There don’t seem to be anyone who own the FPS crowd in japan yet, so i think it would be wise of Nintendo to try to get it before it get bigger and someone else take it.

Honestly, I don’t think that crowd is big enough in Japan for them to make the effort. In the west, certainly, although doing it with Mario would never work, since that isn’t what people that play FPSes would want.

I think Splatoon is Nintendo’s attempt at grabbing some of the shooter mindshare, so we’ll see how that works out for them.

Cheesy12

“…and we we’ll opening sales figures for the game in next week’s sales column.”

I think you messed up a little there :)

d19xx

I feel bad for Acquire. I’ve always seen them similar to From Soft in terms of tech. I hope they get a break someday.

DanijoEX ♬ the Cosmic Owl

I had a feeling Akiba’s Trip 2 (PS4) wouldn’t sell much copies. Most already have the game on PS3 and PSV.

Seeing that would give little reason for people to upgrade to the PS4 version. But what do I know…

Shippoyasha

Hooooo hum. Makes me wonder if MGS5 will turn things around like MGS4 started to back in 2008.

Solomon_Kano

Depends on when it comes out relative to anything else. Supposing, say, FFXV comes out before V is done, it won’t have to. But if MGSV hits first, I get a feeling that it won’t do what 4 did.

Being a cross-gen title in Japan, where consumers aren’t so quick to jump to new hardware could hamper its ability to push the PS4 forward. Maybe V proper will show differently, but the PS3 version of GZ outsold the PS4 version. While the opposite proved true in the US, I think Metal Gear’s Japanese fanbase will be content with sticking to the PS3 for TPP.

darke

The PS4 version of watchdogs is significantly outselling the PS3 one at the moment though.

Granted, it’s different demographics, but it wouldn’t surprise me if either PS4 is higher or they’re essentially tied.

Solomon_Kano

Hm. I wonder if that doesn’t speak more to the Japanese players who were interested in Watch Dogs being the ones who bought the PS4 early anyway. The Metal Gear fanbase is well established on PS3, where Watch Dogs was a new IP, so I could see the PS3 version continuing to outsell the PS4 version when TPP hits.

On the other hand, the PS4 version only outsold it by some 20k, so I guess it wouldn’t be surprising if the PS4 version of TPP comes out on top by the time it’s ready.

darke

Given that gaming has become more of a niche on non-portable systems, I suspect the trend more to otaku with more disposable income will accelerate the move to the PS4 and to a certain extent the XB1 as well.

Solomon_Kano

Interesting to consider.

darke

Well they’ve been early adopters of both this and the last generation, since you can see the otaku focused developers shifting quickly; CH moved quite early to both the PS3 and PS4 in comparison to the bigger Japanese publishers from memory.

If they didn’t expect to sell more PS4 games, then PS3 games, they wouldn’t be releasing their next two big name titles (Quintet and Neptune V II?) exclusively for the PS4 after all.

Solomon_Kano

I wonder though, if those otaku won’t already number in the early adopters. The PS4 doesn’t have much draw for the more general consumer right now, after all. CH and their ilk don’t exactly sell systems on their own, so I have to wonder if we won’t find that their crowd is already on the platform rather than waiting for their titles to appear to move.

Certainly, for niche developers like CH who have a core group of fans, I don’t think it’ll be any worry about whether they’ll be better served on PS3 or PS4, because their audience is so dedicated. In transitional times like these, they target platforms their audience would be most likely to own in the future anyhow — your citing of them being among the first to embrace the PS3, their moving to the Vita while the PSP yet had life, and now their moving to the PS4.

That being said, for all of the good capturing the otaku early might do the new platforms, I have to wonder what impact their early adoption will have relative to large franchises like Tales and growing franchises like Persona sticking to the PS3 for the time being. Where the otaku, the nichest of the console niche, might be ready to jump ship, I think we’ll see the PS3 hold a more firm grip on those more general console consumers. I think Namco alone could affect adoption significantly, perhaps even among those otaku, with their grip on the anime audience. They seem content to service that crowd on the PS3, Vita, and the 3DS (to a lesser extent) — though they did announce that Gundam game for PS4.

Am I making sense here? Anyhow, it should be fun to watch how things develop over these next couple of years as things transition.

darke

Am I making sense here?

More or less. :)

And yeah, Tales will probably take longer to come over to the PS4 since they’re more of a traditional JRPG series, compared to the more otaku focused games on the Vita. Same with Atelier really, though Vita for them seems to be a pretty major, if secondary platform; I can see them doing the same thing with the PS4 giving it “Plus” ports as well of the ‘Dusk’ series where Vita got the entire Rorona one. :)

Solomon_Kano

Haha. Had to be sure.

Baba has said they’re in the “very early phases” of working on Tales for PS4, but who can say how long it’ll take for that to be fully realized. I’d imagine they’ll be on the platform by 2016 though.

Gust should be interesting. With Ayesha already on Vita, I wonder if they won’t just finish out porting the Dusk trilogy there and move to PS4 with their new trilogy. With the series running on the same tech as Omega Force’s Musou titles, they certainly won’t have to worry about starting from scratch on new tools, with OF already having moved up. I wonder if they won’t do a few more games on PS3 though.

darke

From what I’ve seen, most of Gust’s games run on top of Sony’s Phyrre Engine (or however the heck you spell it); so porting the tech at least is a relatively easy task, just need to juggle assets and optimise. Wouldn’t surprise me if this Musou-engine also runs on the same which is why it’s already on the PS4 along with PS3 and Vita.

DesmaX

…
I’m not even surprised by those Akiba’s Trip 2 sales

darke

PS4 port of a Vita title? It’s not the only one of the store, but I can’t say I’d expect much in the way of sales.

3600 sales at 6500 yen each is, what, 23 million yen? If the dev/publisher’s getting only half of that, that’s something like USD100,000 so it should be enough to cover the cost of a port at least.

Odds are the main reason it was developed was to give the developers familiarity with producing a game with the new PS4 dev-tools before risking things on a full game. Actual profits from the title are gravy. :)

darke

Don’t really think they expected more then just covering the cost of development myself. To me it seemed more of a “spike test” to do a quick and cheap test of their ability to use the PS4 dev tools to develop and release a game.

MaximDualBlade

Must I be the only to congralulate Freedom Wars and say that I have the munnies ready for a day one buy. Now tell me the release date

http://epiclyamazing.wordpress.com/ AzureNova

Glad to see Freedom Wars on top, and happy that Date A Live is still on the list as well. Poor Akiba’s Trip though lol. Oh well, at least I’ll be able to play it in English soon lol

NeptuniasBeard

Back to 4 digits again, are we WiiU? What’s it been, like a month or something? Not a bad run, but hopefully the next one will last longer

Daniel Jeanbaptiste

Hyule Warriors will increase again

darke

From previous experience of big-name titles, it’ll increase it again for a couple of weeks, then it’ll drop down to the normal.

I wish PS3-sales were listed in the chart at the top of the page; it would give a good benchmark as to what the ‘normal’ sales are like; since the PS3 is still selling well in the west. The Wii as well if Nintendo are still actually selling it.

Tonton Ramos

Can’t wait for next week to see Youkai Watch and 2 both on the japan’s sales chart along with Mario Kart 8 and 7

Can’t wait to see Yokai Watch 2 numbers and the sales boost it will provide to the 3DS.
BTW what other Japanese million seller titles are coming for the rest of the year? Yokai Watch 2, Smash Bros Wii U/3DS, Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire… Is that it?

That is a steep week two dropoff for Freedom Wars! Ouch. From hundreds of thousands of units to 43 thousand units. I was kind of hoping there would be more of a sales tail.

I’m not terribly surprised though. Have any PS Vita games sold well over time really? Not much on that system functions as a slow burner, and Freedom Wars is entirely in line with other software on that system.

darke

That’s pretty normal really. Between pre-orders and week-one advertising you get most of your sales there and then almost nothing the second week. I’m actually kind of impressed at the 40k myself.

Comparing to a similar selling title, Persona Q sold about the same the first week, but only 30k the second, and the 3DS has got something like 5x the potential number of purchasers then the Vita.

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

I don’t know if that’s necessarily an apt comparison, since Persona Q is strictly a single-player game. Single-player RPGs in general have a tendency to drop pretty fast.

In the case of the 3DS, there’s usually a significant drop around the third week, after which they go on to grow a longer tail, depending on how good word of mouth around the game in question is. Bravely Default and Fire Emblem both sold and sold and sold outside the top-20 for several months. Persona Q will probably do the same.

In the case of multiplayer games, it’s a little harder to be optimistic when you see drops like that, especially when a game has been marketed the way these titles have.

I certainly don’t think Freedom Wars is doing “badly,” all things considered. It’s the second-best-selling game on Vita next to God Eater 2, and the Vita itself still hasn’t hit 3 million in hardware sales, so there is a definite limit to what software on that system can be expected to accomplish.

The problem is, Freedom Wars and GE2 represent the upper limit of how much Vita software in general can do. Both hunting games, both with a fairly mainstream anime aesthetic. The chances of there being future Vita games that will outperform these is fairly low, and that kind of sucks for the software market overall.

Ethan_Twain

Well, at the very least these games represent the upper end of how much hunting games on the Vita can do. The question that begs is: If the best hunting games can do on Vita isn’t super great, why are so many companies lining up to make hunting games on Vita?

I know it sounds cynical, but Monster Hunter is not the only multi million selling handheld franchise in Japan. Why aren’t companies innovating on/borrowing from the other big handheld games? Why isn’t there an Animal Crossing type game on Vita? 3DS has that entire genre locked down with Magician’s Quest and Fantasy Life.

You-Kai Watch is super big with kids, why aren’t there developers targeting that market on Vita? Other games aimed at that demographic like Gaist Crusher are on 3DS. Why isn’t the new Digimon game stealing every last social feature from Pokemon?

I just don’t understand why hunting games need to represent the most successful genre on Vita when other successful genres haven’t even shown up. What’s going on?

malek86

It’s all a matter of target. It’s kinda like saying, GTA was extremely successful, why haven’t any devs made tried making a similar game for the Wii? Or why did platformers and arcade racers on 360 and PS3 fail?

What works on one demographic is not guaranteed to work on others, and devs know that.

We have to wonder here: how many PSV owners bought their device in hope of seeing an Animal Crossing style game? And if they did, what are the chances they don’t also have a 3DS? How many kids even have a PSV, nevermind buying a Yokai Watch-style game on it?

As hunting games become less popular on 3DS (MH4 was already down from MHP3′s peak, and MH4U will probably sell even less) and other genres take centerplace, like indeed Yokai Watch and Animal Crossing, the PSV will probably be the place where all the hunting games keep going, as the market there is made up of more niche players, who are usually more resistant to change.

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

If the best hunting games can do on Vita isn’t super great, why are so many companies lining up to make hunting games on Vita?

Because it’s a safe bet. You don’t need to sell 4 million copies to successful. God Eater is developed on a far lower budget than Monster Hunter is, so selling 500,000 copies is good enough for that game.

We know the vast majority of publishers have no idea how to sell to a mainstream audience any more. The ones that do are doing it on 3DS or PS3.

Why isn’t the new Digimon game stealing every last social feature from Pokemon?

I agree this is an oversight on Namco’s part. That said, I suspect the reason they aren’t doing it is because they’re trying to make a more single-player focused game with Digimon Story. I think we’ll see them develop other Digimon titles in the future that have more of a social element to them.

darke

I’m actually more wondering if the Vita just has a more diverse and specialised audience then other consoles have? Everything I’ve read is that the Vita has quite high attach rates; so maybe 400k is actually approaching the total number of people interested in ‘hunting games’ on the Vita (of, a bit over 2 million or so consoles around the time of release I guess).

Then again, maybe we’re just overanalysing when comparing a nearly 3 million console marketplace with a nearly 16 million one. The best selling title on the list up there for the 3DS is 4 million; which is about 25% attach, vs the 420k from vgcharts out of 3 million, so 14% attach? MH4 is 3.37 of 16 million, which is 21% attach.

Sure the percentages aren’t as good, but I still think there’s too much gloom simply because the “the vita isn’t selling millions” simply because there’s not over 10 million devices to sell to. (Which is a problem; but not a problem of software sales.)

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

I think the problem is the exact opposite—that the audience is actually less diverse than on other platforms.

If you look at the kinds of games that publishers put on Vita in Japan, most of the significant ones fit neatly into one of the following categories: Licensed anime game; port of low/mid-end PS3 game; hunting-action game; idol/rhythm game.

It’s an odd situation, because these are the kinds of games that are keeping the Vita going, but at the same time, they’re also the only kind of game it’s getting, which is why you never see hardware sales increase significantly for more than a few weeks at a time. Freedom Wars didn’t do anything for Vita hardware because—as you pointed out—the people interested in owning these games have already bought the device.

That said, there is certainly money to be made on Vita, so it isn’t all doom and gloom—not for third-party publishers anyway. For a publisher like Bandai Namco, Vita’s a great platform because they develop so many low/mid-tier (from a technical standpoint) PS3 games that can easily be ported over. The same goes for smaller companies like NIS and Compile Heart.

The catch is, it only works for games that have that small, hardcore following. Anything that is expected to reach out to a wider audience won’t succeed. That’s why we aren’t seeing Square Enix or Level 5 or Capcom support the device.

There are other factors, too, I feel. There’s the demographic in terms of age and gender, both of which play a role when you look at support from companies like Atlus and Marvelous, and how they differ between Vita and 3DS in terms of the kinds of games they put on both systems. But that’s a whole other conversation, haha.

darke

That was kind of what I was trying to say with the ‘diverse and specialised’ phrase.

You’ve got wildly different demographic chunks and they’re all specialised. The hunting-game fans probably aren’t interested in the idol/rhythm games; the idol/rhythm gamers aren’t probably interested in the cute-character-driven-RPG-games (CompileHeart and the like), and so on.

At a guess, I’d say there’s probably half a million hunting-game fans on the Vita, which will increase as people migrate from the PSP as cross platform titles dry up, but at least in the short term, you’re not likely to get more then that amount of sales for the ‘best’ hunting game on the platform.

Same with the other games. Idol/rhythm games? 200-300k. CH/ecchi-games? Atelier-games? I think there’s a number of demographics that may have overlaps but for most part it just feels like people tend to specialise; the numbers seem a little too consistent at times for it not to be the case.

Also I feel there’s definitely a ‘F2P’ contingent as well, the smart-phone-gamers-with-physical-controls. Things like Million Arthur. (Though PSO2 probably attracts more traditional gamers.)

I still think Sony should be trying to persuade a lot more of the companies they work with to do at least a Vita cross-buy. In the longer run it’ll mean both more potential vita buyers since they’ll have games already (that’s why I ended up buying one; I had half a dozen games free from either cross-buy or PS+ so figured I’d get one to see how well it worked; and now I have two), and probably entice more digital sales out of the Japanese as well, which they’re also pushing for at least globally.

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

Oh. I see what you mean now. Yeah, I agree completely—that’s exactly the way it seems. You have all of these different niches on Vita and there doesn’t seem to be much overlap among them.

At a guess, I’d say there’s probably half a million hunting-game fans on the Vita, which will increase as people migrate from the PSP as cross platform titles dry up…

I think you’re spot on with the first part of that comment, too. There’s a certain number of hungry Vita owners that are into hunting games, and they definitely buy multiple titles in the same genre.

Regarding the part about PSP gamers crossing over, the main obstacle here is Monster Hunter, which is something a lot of people have pointed out in the past. A few years ago, PSP itself wasn’t doing so well, and Monster Hunter was the game that caused it to take off. That was the game most people bought a PSP for and attracted the mainstream portion of the PSP’s audience to the platform. Now that MH is gone, that audience is likely never going to come back.

I can definitely see why Sony are encouraging and incentivizing publishers to put so many hunting titles on Vita—in the absence of Monster Hunter, they see these as the next best thing. I think SCE has accepted that the system will never grow beyond a point even in Japan, and they intend to ride the rest of its life out by keeping software sales at a certain threshold.

I still think Sony should be trying to persuade a lot more of the companies they work with to do at least a Vita cross-buy.

Hmm… do you really think this would work, though? The reason this works in the West is because the vast majority of Cross-Buy titles are digital indie games that won’t sell beyond a certain figure, so convincing their developers to enable Cross-Buy doesn’t take much effort. They have nothing to lose. Their game gets in the hands of more people (even if they have to give a second copy away for “free”), and consumers that would rather play them on a portable than on a TV get to do that. It’s a relative win-win.

In Japan, that isn’t really possible, since the multiplatform games between PS3 and Vita are still niche titles, but they’re distributed through retail, often don’t run on the same engine as their PS3 counterparts do, and are budgeted separately. In the case of Japan, Cross-Buy literally means telling a publisher to forfeit 1/4 of their sales so that Sony can sell more Vitas.

darke

Do 25% of people really buy both copies though? It seems high, but I guess we are talking the somewhat more obsessed…

Anyway, cross-buy means digital, which means that the publishers/developers should get a higher cut of the margin, and no expenses producing, distributing, and having to deal with returns of a physical ‘thing’. I would assume whatever cut Sony is offering would have to be better than that resulting from a physical distribution arrangement.

Sony’s Playstation Mobile program is the usual 70/30 cut, so I’d assume the PSN would have to be somewhat similar; if it costs significantly more to do retail then the missed duplicate sales might be covered.

Plus it also benefits Sony somewhat so I don’t see why they shouldn’t give some kick back. :P

As far as porting goes; Gust and Nippon Ichi at least use this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhyreEngine which is PS3/PS4/Vita/PSP crossplat. It’s just a matter of making sure the assets/shaders work well on both platforms (which they have to do anyway if they’re already building a cross platform title). Then there’s Unity as well.

Anyway at the end of the day it’s all money, there’s too many guesses in mine to really say if it’s a good idea, or a bad idea or if it’s a “wait for the right moment” idea. :(

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

Do 25% of people really buy both copies though? It seems high, but I guess we are talking the somewhat more obsessed…

No, no. What I meant was, if you look at some of the more significant Vita ports—like, say, J-Stars Victory Vs.—one-fourth or one-fifth of the sales come from Vita.

Effectively, the sales of the Vita version pay for the extra costs of porting the games to that system. Simply asking publishers to give those copies away for free doesn’t make sense in this scenario, since it cuts into their profits.

http://hatintime.com/ ShadowFang

Man… 188k to 43k in a week? That is a SUPER crappy drop.

Has anything on the PS Vita sold a million? The ‘big hits’ seem to die off at 250k-500k, or am I mistaken?

darke

Flick back a few weeks on the charts and you’ll find that’s pretty normal. First week always has most of the sales for almost every game; even in the west.

As I mentioned below, it’s second week sold better then the second week sales for Persona Q on the 3DS.

JonathanisPrimus

There are three million Vitas in Japan. Very few games in history have ever had a 1-3 attach rate.

Armageddon

ps4 doesn’t look too hot in japan. Then again what the point of buying a ps4 for a game thats on the ps3

-Misaki-

Didn’t expect Freedom Wars to be on top on second week, good to see that.

http://hanzoadam.tumblr.com/ Hanzoadam

3,602 copies of Akiba’s trip 2 PS4 ¬_¬ hope this doesn’t effect it potentially coming out in the west on PS4

http://www.lrdalucard.deviantart.com lrdalucard

Saddly, but you might be right…

malek86

I think devs know the PS4 will be vastly more successful in the west than in Japan. So japanese sales might not matter all that much.

http://www.lrdalucard.deviantart.com lrdalucard

I would like to believe that but… in west ppl call “Games” to games like CoD’s and GTA’s…
One of the only reasons I purchased a ps3 instead a ps4 recently was because there where no Eastern Titles in it, aside from war games and fps…

Ric Vazquez

I know that feel

http://www.lrdalucard.deviantart.com lrdalucard

Wanna see whos going to take Freedom Wars down of that Clift now… xD

Shadow Rebirth

not surprise to Akiba’s Trip 2′s sales since PS4′s sales in Japan doesn’t even reach a million, i think.

Lemski07

hype!

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